The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle

"To see the peacekeeper myth ably demolished...one must pick up Lewis MacKenzie's own memoir, Soldiers Made Me Look Good. Loaded with anecdotes, and delivered in MacKenzie's suffer-fools-badly style, it's easily the speed-read of the bunch." -- Calgary Herald

A riveting follow-up to the best-selling Peacekeeper, including MacKenzie's provocative views on leadership and the current state of the Canadian Armed Forces. Since retiring from the Armed Forces, Lewis MacKenzie has not stayed out of the spotlight but continues to speak his mind. In this straight-talking memoir, he traces his post-military career as an international commentator on military affairs, a consultant to the Irish government and a federal political candidate. And here, he answers his critics, including journalist Carol Off for her criticism of his handling of the UN mission in Bosnia. In a hard-hitting chapter, he discusses his professional disagreement with the leadership priorities demonstrated by Romeo Dallaire in the early hours of the Rwandan genocide. He continues his story to the present, to "the first real litmus test for nato" -- Afghanistan.

Divided into two parts -- pre-1993, when MacKenzie calls himself a Cold War grunt, and post-1993, after his controversial stint in Bosnia -- Soldiers Made Me Look Good is laced with anecdotes both funny and profound. It concludes with ten pointers on leadership, in which Lewis MacKenzie shares hard-earned insights from a life on the front lines.

Many Canadians see the role their country's military plays in Afghanistan as an anomaly. However, this assumption is far from the truth. As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has commented, "Canadians are fierce fighters." Fortune Favours the Brave certainly proves this point in a collection of essays that showcases the fighting spirit and courage of Canada's military.

Daring actions featured in the book include the intrepid assault on the Fortress of Louisbourg and the cat-and-mouse struggle between Canadian partisans and Rogers's Rangers in the Seven Years' War in the 1750s; the seesaw battle for the Niagara frontier in the War of 1812; an innovative trench raid in the First World War; the valiant parachute assault to penetrate the Third Reich in the Second World War; the infamous battle at Kap'yong in the Korean War; covert submarine operations during the Cold War; the Medak Pocket clash in Croatia in the early 1990s; and Operation Medusa in Afghanistan.

From the oldest known court transcripts in history, Egyptologists have long known about the mysterious death of Ramses III, involving intrigue, ambition, greed, and crimes of passion on a huge, though hidden, scale. In Year of the Hyenas, Brad Geagley takes this event -- a struggle that nearly brought ancient Egypt to its knees -- as the backdrop for a story that is every bit as captivating as the distant civilization it resurrects.

At the heart of the novel is Semerket, the so-called Clerk of Investigations and Secrets, a detective half-paralyzed by problems of his own, with a reputation for heavy drinking and tactless behavior toward the great, the powerful, and the holy, a kind of Sam Spade of the ancient world, deeply (and dangerously) addicted to the truth. Hard-bitten, deeply flawed, he is retained by the authorities to investigate what is considered an insignificant murder of an elderly, insignificant Theban priestess. They fail to inform him, however, that they don't expect him to solve the case. In fact, they don't want him to.

But Semerket is not so easily fooled, and this is hardly an "insignificant" murder. As he delves deeper for the elusive truth, he uncovers a web of corruption so vast that it threatens the life of the last great Pharaoh, Ramses III, and the stability of the kingdom. Even worse, uncovering the conspiracy means more than just putting his own life on the line -- for, unbeknownst to Semerket, his adored ex-wife Naia has fallen afoul of those who would bring down the reign of Ramses, and he soon finds himself having to choose between saving her and saving Egypt....